The viruses associated with bats have generated significant concern; however, there is limited knowledge regarding the endoparasites that affect these mammals. This study involved the collection of seven nematode specimens (three males and four females) from the intestines of Hipposideros armiger in Shaoguan City, Guangdong, China. Next-generation sequencing was employed to obtain the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome, which was determined to be 14,130 base pairs in length. The mitochondrial genome comprised 12 protein-coding genes, 21 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, and an AT-rich non-coding region. Phylogenetic analyses based on mtDNA sequences indicated that the nematode forms a sister clade to Nematodirus, exhibiting only 74% nucleotide identity. In contrast, the nuclear ITS1 gene demonstrated a high degree of nucleotide identity (98.6%–98.8%) with Durettenema guangdongense. Consequently, the parasitic nematode identified from H. armiger is likely to belong to the genus Durettenema and has been designated as Durettenema sp. 888. Furthermore, an epidemiological investigation revealed the presence of the parasitic nematode infections in H. armiger collected from Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guizhou Provinces. Given the widespread distribution of H. armiger and their tendency to inhabit areas in close proximity to human dwellings, the influence of parasite prevalence on bat population numbers and potential for human and domestic animal transmission of this pathogen warrants further investigation.

To investigate the flame acceleration to detonation in 2.0 and 0.5 mm planar glass combustion chambers, the experiments have been conducted utilising ethylene/oxygen mixtures at atmospheric pressure and temperature. The high-speed camera has been used to record the revolution of flame front and pressure inside the combustion chamber. Different equivalence ratios and ignition locations have been considered in the experiments. The results show that the detonation pressure in the 2 mm thick chamber is nearly three times of Chapman-Jouguet pressure, while detonation pressure in the 0.5 mm thick chamber is only 45.7% of the Chapman-Jouguet value at the stoichiometric mixture. This phenomenon is attributed to the larger pressure loss in the thinner chamber during the detonation propagation. As the value of equivalence ratio is 2.2, the detonation cannot be produced in the 2 mm thick chamber, while the detonation can be generated successfully in the 0.5 mm thick chamber. This phenomenon indicates that the deflagration is easily to be accelerated and transformed into the detonation, due to a larger wall friction and reflection. Besides, the micro-obstacle has been added into the combustor can shorten the detonation transition time and reduces the distance of the detonation transition.

We first sequenced and characterised the complete mitochondrial genome of Toxocara apodeme, then studied the evolutionary relationship of the species within Toxocaridae. The complete mitochondrial genome was amplified using PCR with 14 specific primers. The mitogenome length was 14303 bp in size, including 12 PCGs (encoding 3,423 amino acids), 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs, and 2 NCRs, with 68.38% A+T contents. The mt genomes of T. apodemi had relatively compact structures with 11 intergenic spacers and 5 overlaps. Comparative analyses of the nucleotide sequences of complete mt genomes showed that T. apodemi had higher identities with T. canis than other congeners. A sliding window analysis of 12 PCGs among 5 Toxocara species indicated that nad4 had the highest sequence divergence, and cox1 was the least variable gene. Relative synonymous codon usage showed that UUG, ACU, CCU, CGU, and UCU most frequently occurred in the complete genomes of T. apodemi. The Ka/Ks ratio showed that all Toxocara mt genes were subject to purification selection. The largest genetic distance between T. apodemi and the other 4 congeneric species was found in nad2, and the smallest was found in cox2. Phylogenetic analyses based on the concatenated amino acid sequences of 12 PCGs demonstrated that T. apodemi formed a distinct branch and was always a sister taxon to other congeneric species. The present study determined the complete mt genome sequences of T. apodemi, which provide novel genetic markers for further studies of the taxonomy, population genetics, and systematics of the Toxocaridae nematodes.

Echinococcosis poses a significant threat to public health. The Chinese government has implemented prevention and control measures to mitigate the impact of the disease. By analyzing data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, we found that implementation of these measures has reduced the infection rate by nearly 50% between 2004 to 2022 (from 0.3975 to 0.1944 per 100,000 person-years). Nonetheless, some regions still bear a significant disease burden, and lack of detailed information limites further evaluation of the effects on both alveolar and cystic echinococcosis. Our analysis supports the continuing implementation of these measures and suggests that enhanced wildlife management, case-based strategies, and surveillance systems will facilitate disease control.

In the present study, we investigated the influence of different mid-stage N compensation timings on agronomic and physiological traits associated with grain yield and quality in field experiments. Two japonica rice cultivars with a good tasting quality (Nangeng 9108 and Nangeng 5055) were examined under eight N compensation timings (N1–N6: one-time N compensation at 7-2 weeks before heading; N7: split N compensation at 5 and 3 weeks before heading; N8: split N compensation at 4 and 2 weeks before heading) and a control with no N compensation. The highest yield was obtained with N7, followed by N3. The yield advantage is mainly attributable to the improved population structure (higher productive tiller rate with a stable number of effective panicles), higher total number of spikelets per unit area (large panicles with more grains per panicle), larger leaf area index in the late period and higher photosynthetic production capacity (more dry matter accumulation and transportation in the middle and late periods). Delaying N compensation timing improved the processing and nutritional quality of rice, but decreased the quality of appearance and cooking/eating traits. Our results suggest that, from the perspective of achieving relative coordination between high yield and high quality of japonica rice, the optimal N compensation should be divided equally at 5 and 3 weeks before heading. However, if simplifying the number of operations and the pursuit of eating quality were considered, one-time N compensation should be conducted at 5 weeks before heading.

Planting patterns have significant effects on rice growth. Nonetheless, little is known about differences in annual crop yield and resource utilization among mechanized rice planting patterns in a rice–wheat cropping system. Field experiments were conducted from 2014 to 2017 using three treatments: pot seedling transplanting for rice and row sowing for wheat (PST-RS), carpet seedling transplanting for rice and row sowing for wheat (CST-RS) and row sowing for both crops (RS-RS). The results showed that, compared with RS-RS, PST-RS and CST-RS prolonged annual crop growth duration by 25–26 and 13–15 days, increased effective accumulated temperature by 399 and 212°C days and increased cumulative solar radiation by 454 and 228 MJ/m2 because of the earlier sowing of rice by 28 and 16 days in PST-RS and CST-RS, respectively. Compared with RS-RS, the annual crop yield of PST-RS and CST-RS increased by 3.1–3.8 and 2.0–2.6 t/ha, respectively, because of the increase in the number of spikelets/kernels per hectare, aboveground biomass, mean leaf area index and grain–leaf ratio. In addition, temperature production efficiency, solar radiation production efficiency and solar radiation use efficiency were higher in PST-RS, followed by CST-RS and RS-RS. These results suggest that mechanized rice planting patterns such as PST-RS increase annual crop production in rice–wheat cropping systems by increasing yield and solar energy utilization.

Previous studies have revealed associations of meteorological factors with tuberculosis (TB) cases. However, few studies have examined their lag effects on TB cases. This study was aimed to analyse nonlinear lag effects of meteorological factors on the number of TB notifications in Hong Kong. Using a 22-year consecutive surveillance data in Hong Kong, we examined the association of monthly average temperature and relative humidity with temporal dynamics of the monthly number of TB notifications using a distributed lag nonlinear models combined with a Poisson regression. The relative risks (RRs) of TB notifications were >1.15 as monthly average temperatures were between 16.3 and 17.3 °C at lagged 13–15 months, reaching the peak risk of 1.18 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02–1.35) when it was 16.8 °C at lagged 14 months. The RRs of TB notifications were >1.05 as relative humidities of 60.0–63.6% at lagged 9–11 months expanded to 68.0–71.0% at lagged 12–17 months, reaching the highest risk of 1.06 (95% CI 1.01–1.11) when it was 69.0% at lagged 13 months. The nonlinear and delayed effects of average temperature and relative humidity on TB epidemic were identified, which may provide a practical reference for improving the TB warning system.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is a disease with a high case-fatality rate that is caused by infection with the SFTS virus (SFTSV). Five electronic databases were systematically searched to identify relevant articles published from 1 January 2011 to 1 December 2019. The pooled rates with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated by a fixed-effect or random-effect model analysis. The results showed that 92 articles were included in this meta-analysis. For the confirmed SFTS cases, the case-fatality rate was 0.15 (95% CI 0.11, 0.18). Two hundred and ninety-six of 1384 SFTS patients indicated that they had been bitten by ticks and the biting rate was 0.21 (95% CI 0.16, 0.26). The overall pooled seroprevalence of SFTSV antibodies among the healthy population was 0.04 (95% CI 0.03, 0.05). For the overall seroprevalence of SFTSV in animals, the seroprevalence of SFTSV was 0.25 (95% CI 0.20, 0.29). The infection rate of SFTSV in ticks was 0.08 (95% CI 0.05, 0.11). In conclusion, ticks can serve as transmitting vectors of SFTSVs and reservoir hosts. Animals can be infected by tick bites, and as a reservoir host, SFTSV circulates continuously between animals and ticks in nature. Humans are infected by tick bites and direct contact with patient secretions.

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a common pathogen associated with nosocomial infections and is characterised serologically by capsular polysaccharide (K) and lipopolysaccharide O antigens. We surveyed a total of 348 non-duplicate K. pneumoniae clinical isolates collected over a 1-year period in a tertiary care hospital, and determined their O and K serotypes by sequencing of the wbb Y and wzi gene loci, respectively. Isolates were also screened for antimicrobial resistance and hypervirulent phenotypes; 94 (27.0%) were identified as carbapenem-resistant (CRKP) and 110 (31.6%) as hypervirulent (hvKP). isolates fell into 58 K, and six O types, with 92.0% and 94.2% typeability, respectively. The predominant K types were K14K64 (16.38%), K1 (14.66%), K2 (8.05%) and K57 (5.46%), while O1 (46%), O2a (27.9%) and O3 (11.8%) were the most common. CRKP and hvKP strains had different serotype distributions with O2a:K14K64 (41.0%) being the most frequent among CRKP, and O1:K1 (26.4%) and O1:K2 (17.3%) among hvKP strains. Serotyping by gene sequencing proved to be a useful tool to inform the clinical epidemiology of K. pneumoniae infections and provides valuable data relevant to vaccine design.

We describe system verification tests and early science results from the pulsar processor (PTUSE) developed for the newly commissioned 64-dish SARAO MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. MeerKAT is a high-gain (${\sim}2.8\,\mbox{K Jy}^{-1}$) low-system temperature (${\sim}18\,\mbox{K at }20\,\mbox{cm}$) radio array that currently operates at 580–1 670 MHz and can produce tied-array beams suitable for pulsar observations. This paper presents results from the MeerTime Large Survey Project and commissioning tests with PTUSE. Highlights include observations of the double pulsar $\mbox{J}0737{-}3039\mbox{A}$, pulse profiles from 34 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from a single 2.5-h observation of the Globular cluster Terzan 5, the rotation measure of Ter5O, a 420-sigma giant pulse from the Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR $\mbox{J}0540{-}6919$, and nulling identified in the slow pulsar PSR J0633–2015. One of the key design specifications for MeerKAT was absolute timing errors of less than 5 ns using their novel precise time system. Our timing of two bright MSPs confirm that MeerKAT delivers exceptional timing. PSR $\mbox{J}2241{-}5236$ exhibits a jitter limit of $<4\,\mbox{ns h}^{-1}$ whilst timing of PSR $\mbox{J}1909{-}3744$ over almost 11 months yields an rms residual of 66 ns with only 4 min integrations. Our results confirm that the MeerKAT is an exceptional pulsar telescope. The array can be split into four separate sub-arrays to time over 1 000 pulsars per day and the future deployment of S-band (1 750–3 500 MHz) receivers will further enhance its capabilities.

Many studies showed the differences in subjective response to sexual stimuli between heterosexual and homosexual men. However, the underlying neurobiological factors of sexual orientation are largely unknown. We addressed the question what is the major attribution of the expected differences in brain activation, i.e. neural circuits or different cognitive process. Twenty-eight healthy male volunteers, 14 heterosexuals and 14 homosexuals, were scanned by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging while subjects were viewing different types of stimuli, i.e. heterosexual couple stimuli (HCS), gay couple stimuli (GCS), lesbian couple stimuli (LCS) and neutral stimuli (NS). SPM02 was used for data analysis. Rating of sexual attractiveness was assessed. Subjective sexual arousal was induced by HCS and GCS in heterosexual and homosexual men, respectively. And sexual disgust was induced by GCS and LCS in heterosexual and homosexual men, respectively. As compared to viewing NS, viewing sexual stimuli induced significant different brain activations most of which had characteristic for cognitive process. These observations suggested that different cognitive pattern was major attribution of different subjective response to sexual stimuli between heterosexual and homosexual men.

The treatment of refractory schizophrenia has been a clinical challenge for most psychiatrists. The possible mechanism of the refractory schizophrenia included diagnostic errors, medical conditions and brain dysgensis. Here, we described a patient with childhood-onset schizophrenia who had severe psychiatric symptoms such as auditory hallucination and persecutory delusion and so on. We reexamined all his possible medical conditions and found the patient had an abnormal enlarged Cavus Septum Pellucidum (CSP) combined with Cavum Vergae (CV) (maximum length>30 mm). Some reports suggested that abnormal CSP(length>6 mm) has an significant association with schizophrenia. However, abnormally large CSP or CSP/CV and related prognosis were reported rarely. This case suggested that abnormally enlarged CSP or CSP/CV may lead to schizophrenia and worse prognosis.

The gut is composed of a single layer of intestinal epithelial cells and plays important roles in the digestion and absorption of nutrients, immune and barrier functions and amino acid metabolism. Weaning stress impairs piglet intestinal epithelium structural and functional integrities, which results in reduced feed intake, growth rates and increased morbidity and mortality. Several measures are needed to maintain swine gut development and growth performance after weaning stress. A large body of evidence indicates that, in weaning piglets, glutamine, a functional amino acid, may improve growth performance and intestinal morphology, reduce oxidative damage, stimulate enterocyte proliferation, modulate cell survival and death and enhance intestinal paracellular permeability. This review focuses on the effects of glutamine on intestinal health in piglets. The aim is to provide evidentiary support for using glutamine as a feed additive to alleviate weaning stress.

Previously, we reported a phylogenetic study of 98 Burkholderia pseudomallei clinical isolates from Hainan, China. Here, we update the B. pseudomallei strain library with 52 strains from newly identified cases dating from 2014 to 2017, analysed by multilocus sequence typing. Twenty-two sequence types (STs) were identified from the 52 cases, illustrating high genetic diversity; five of them (ST1480, ST1481, ST1482, ST1483 and ST1484) were novel. ST46, ST50 and ST58 predominated (34.6%) as was the case in the previous study (35.7%). An e-BURST map of the ST profiles of the two collections of isolates showed their genetic foundation to be largely unchanged. Neighbour-joining tree analysis was suggestive of a close phylogenetic relationship between the novel STs from this series and those first reported from Hainan (ST1105, ST1099, ST55 and ST1095). Moreover, the two novel STs (1481 and 1483) showed close similarity to ST58 which originated in Thailand indicating a close relationship between B. pseudomallei strains from both countries. The previously described allele profiles gmhD-36 and lepA-68 were found for the first time in our strain collections. Our study emphasises the importance of monitoring the epidemiological status and evolutionary trends of B. pseudomallei in China.

Pathogenesis of pregnancy toxemia (PT) is believed to be associated with the disruption of lipid metabolism. The present study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of lipid metabolism disorder in the livers of ewes with PT. In total, 10 pregnant ewes were fed normally (control group) whereas another 10 were subjected to 70% level feed restriction for 15 days to establish a pathological model of PT. Results showed that, as compared with the controls, the levels of blood β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs) and cholesterol were greater (P<0.05) and blood glucose level was lower (P<0.05) in PT ewes. The contents of NEFAs, BHBA, cholesterol and triglyceride were higher (P<0.05) and glycerol content was lower (P<0.05) in hepatic tissues of PT ewes than those of the controls. For ewes with PT, excessive fat vacuoles were observed in liver sections stained with hematoxylin–eosin; furthermore, inner structures of hepatocytes including nuclei, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum were damaged seriously according to the results of transmission electron microscope. Real-time PCR data showed that compared with the controls, the expression of hepatic genes involved in fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and triglyceride synthesis (TGS) was enhanced (P<0.05) whereas that related to acetyl-CoA metabolism (ACM) was repressed (P<0.05) in PT ewes. Generally, our results showed that negative energy balance altered the expression of genes involved in FAO, ACM and TGS, further caused lipid metabolism disorder in livers, resulting in PT of ewes. Our findings may provide the molecular basis for novel therapeutic strategies against this systemic metabolic disease in sheep.

The influence of Zn on the adsorption and desorption of Cry1Ab toxin from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) on palygorskite and montmorillonite was studied. The adsorption of the toxin gradually increased with increasing Zn concentration from 0 to 1.0 mmol L–1, and then decreased with further increase in Zn concentration. The adsorption isotherms of the toxin in the absence and presence of Zn were well described by the Langmuir equation (R2 > 0.9810–0.9991). The separation factor (RL ) decreased with increase of Zn concentration, suggesting that the irreversibility of the adsorption increases. The XRD results showed that the treatment by Tris buffer or Zn(NO3)2 solution caused an expansion of the interlayer space of montmorillonite but did not affect palygorskite. The IR spectra suggest that Zn was likely to be combined with amino groups on the surface of the toxin. The presence of Zn during the adsorption of the toxin decreased desorption, suggesting that the residual risk of toxin would be exacerbated if soil is polluted by zinc.

An underwater shock loading experimental device is used to simulate underwater explosion shock waves. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of flyer momentum on the response of an aluminium plate to this underwater shock loading experimental device. The simulation accuracy can be verified by comparing theoretical data with the simulation and experimental results. Through simulations, an aluminium plate’s deformation and pressure specific impulse can be determined when flyers impact the piston at different velocities but at the same momentum. The aluminium plate's deformation and pressure specific impulse are constant when the flyers had constant momentum because both are directly proportional to the flyer momentum. The results have an important practical value for understanding and using this type of experimental device.